Web Marketing Tips, Tools and Techniques
Although web marketing should be strategy-based, depending on industry and market, there are a few common tips and techniques that we’d recommend to anyone looking to increase the profile and effectiveness of their website - especially for those with new domains. The following is a guide to the way we may go about it.
Web Hosting Basics
- Set up a custom error page - Most of us are familiar with the Error 404 page or Page / Server Not Found message. This occurs most often when a specific web page is requested but either no longer exists, can’t be found or the URL has been mis-typed. The process of creating a friendlier web page such as this one will need to be set up by your hosting company but should be regarded as essential for both user experience and for search engines.
- Page redirects - If you have implemented a new website to replace an old one, 301 redirects will help to take any existing links and credibility onto a new page.
Sitemap Fundamentals
First of all, let’s clear up any confusion concerning the term sitemap. There are two distinct types of sitemap even though they both do pretty much the same job which is to accurately represent the structure (or architecture) of the website in which they reside to make sure all its pages can be found.
A sitemap that’s intended to be visible within the site (e.g. sitemap.html) serves as a navigational aid to both the end user as well as a search engine crawler while an XML generated sitemap, which is found in the root web directory, is intended to be of value mainly to to a web bot to help it index the site.
- Include an HTML (or equivalent) sitemap within your website. Create a comprehensive list of links in a logical or hierarchical sequence each of which point to pages within your website.
- Set up an XML sitemap for your website. If your site can not create this automatically, use an online tool or download some cheap software to do it for you. We use RAGE. The XML sitemap sits on the top-level of your domain directory. Then,
- Create Your Robots File - A Robots file tells search engines what to do and what to ignore abut your website (comprehensive overview here). One thing you can do immediately, is tell the search engine where your sitemap is - see this robots file for The Escape website. Why not right-click on it to download and amend the details accordingly?
- Set up Google Webmaster Tools - You can then attach your new site map into Google Webmaster tools for intelligent feedback on how they see your site. Both Yahoo and Microsoft also have variations.
Sitemap Tip #1
Specifying the Sitemap location in your robots.txt file
You can specify the location of your Sitemap using the robots.txt file. To do this, simply add the following line:
Sitemap: sitemap_location where sitemap_location should be the complete URL to the Sitemap, such as http://www.your_website.com/sitemap.xml.
You can also specify more than one Sitemap file per robots.txt file.
Sitemap: sitemap1_location
Sitemap: sitemap2_location
Sitemap Tip #2
Submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request
To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request issue your request to the following URL: searchengine_URL/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url.
So, if your Sitemap is located at http://www.your_website.com/sitemap.xml, your URL will become:
searchengine_URL/ping?sitemap=http://www.your_website.com/sitemap.xml.
Web Page Content Refinement
- Make sure your web pages say what you want them to say with The Escape’s Web Page Analyzer.
- Refine your meta titles and descriptions so they relate to the page content and ensure they look compelling in a search engine with our Better Meta Data Tool.
Stick to the Rules
The goal of all content managers should be to make their website as search engine ‘friendly’ as possible but without running the risk of incurring any penalties in the process. It’s therefore very important to understand that there are certain activities that may lead to a loss of search engine rank or, even worse, result in a total ban.
We strongly advise anyone responsible for administering or making changes to website content to acquaint themselves with some of the basic rules that apply.
Read, How Can I Create a Google-friendly Site?. It provides advice on good practice when developing searchable, web-friendly pages along with a few things to avoid. Further information from Google that deals with design, content, technical and quality issues is also recommended reading.
Similar help is provided by Microsoft for Live! Search.
By sticking to the guidelines, any chance of falling foul of the vagaries of web spiders will be hugely reduced.
Website Go Live
New Domain
- Tell people that you have a new website - why not email your customers?
- Ask business partners, local/industry press to publish announcements on their website with a link to your new website
- You can manually add your URL to Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.
- For immediate impact, you may want to consider some specific per-per-click ad campaigns to drive initial traffic.
Existing Domain
- Use your new website as a reason to contact people - existing clients, suppliers, press, etc.
- Contact people linking to you to mention that you have a new website, especially if they are linking to a page that has been moved or no longer exists - it will give you a chance to suggest a new relevant link.
You can find out who links to you by typing the following into the search bar of your search engine:
- Google: link:http://www.yourdomainname.co.uk
- Yahoo: link:http://www.yourdomainname.co.uk/ -site:www.yourdomainname.co.uk
General Awareness Techniques
- Advertise your domain in any offline communications - stationery, business cards, brochures, giveaways (diaries, pens, etc.).
- Add a footer to your e-mails with a link to your website. Make sure everyone in the company is doing the same.
Localised Online Marketing Techniques
Don’t overlook what’s on your doorstep. If you have business in your local market, enhance your profile geographically.
- Place your business in Google Local and Yahoo Local.
- Go to Google and do a search for "your_town_name directory" to see if there are any free or cheap local directories. You can of course do the same with industry directories.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay-per-click has it’s place but is becoming increasingly expensive. In our experience, it’s best used for consumer websites selling product, or niche products and services for B2C or B2B.
- Google is still the biggest with Adwords, but you also have Yahoo and Microsoft Adcenter.
- Facebook has a variation of keyword matched social advertising - probably best for consumer products.
Articles and Whitepaper Marketing
Write articles on your website that are useful to people, then tell people about it - your existing client base for starters, industry, bloggers, etc.
- You can also publish your articles on websites such as Article Base and Ezine Articles.
- Add social bookmarking buttons to your article pages to make it easier for people to share.
Social Bookmarks
If you have pages on your website that could be useful to people, place on social bookmark buttons to allow visitors to easily share them using social bookmarks. You could post them yourself, but these tools tend to use credibility, so you will need to be sharing lots of relevant stuff before yours is also recognised.
If you scroll to the top of this page and look on the right you will see the social buttons we have applied. You can’t guarantee someone will click them, but it does give them an easy way of doing it if they do want to share.
- Delicious is an online bookmarking tool where users can share their bookmarks
- StumbleUpon allows people to play roulette with websites of interest. It’s a great platform for discovery though and can drive lots of quick traffic, if it’s good. Users vote with their fingers.
Social Networks
Social networking is a 21st century phenomenon where people sign up to a website, create a personal profile and begin to share all types of information amongst themselves. In many cases, this results in large, lively, 'virtual communities' inhabited by people with similar interests who are keen to interact and communicate with each other.
You can promote your business by creating company profile pages on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Squidoo. Alternatively, consider uploading photos onto Flickr or videos onto YouTube.
Use these networks to inform. In other words, become an active member of each community and build unique, relevant content and you’ll find that your backlinks will work much harder for you.